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Forza Motorsport 3 – X360

The latest instalment in Microsoft’s Forza franchise does pretty much what you’d expect a modern racer to do: delivers high octane thrills, with some cracking tracks and a host of the sweetest cars in the world. Forza 3 is bigger, better and more fun than ever before, regardless of whether you’re a casual arcade racer or a serious simulation fan. That simple fact is what makes this one of the finest racing titles ever released.

Thanks to a wealth of driving assist options, from automatic brakes to racing lines, computer driver skill to stability control, you can fine-tune the game’s difficulty level to something approaching your own skill-set, so whether you’re a virtual racing novice or a seasoned pro, you can find a challenge to meet your needs. The fact that you can use the -Back’ button to rewind mid-race and negotiate a difficult section a second, third or even fourth time, is genius for those of us with spatial issues, like Sky Plus for your Xbox.

The presentation is impressive throughout, from the dashboard through to the perfectly recreated cars and tracks themselves. It’s extremely playable, regardless of experience, with a host of little things that make it really enjoyable, including the regular stage times, which tell you how far you are in real time from the cars immediately in front and behind, or the fact that the game informs you when your current car requires and upgrade to be competitive in a particular race grade. Highly recommended.